100 Fun Facts About 2020

Which Philippine volcano, on an island in a lake near Manila, erupted on January 12, 2020, for the first time since 1977?

Taal threw ash over Metro Manila within hours, and the capital's main airport suspended every flight while people living around the lake were moved out.

Which retired NBA star died with his daughter Gianna in a January 2020 helicopter crash?

Kobe Bryant was one of nine people killed; investigators blamed the pilot's decision to keep flying into thick cloud, where he lost his bearings.

Which trade agreement did the USMCA, signed into US law in January 2020, replace?

NAFTA had bound the three countries since 1994; Donald Trump, who called it perhaps the worst trade deal ever made, signed its replacement, which took effect that July.

The UK's Brexit transition ended on December 31, 2020, under a trade deal agreed on which day?

Christmas Eve: the deal came 11 months after the UK left the EU and a week before the transition ran out, so Parliament rushed it through in a single day, December 30.

The WHO named COVID-19 on February 11, 2020; what does the '19' in the name stand for?

The year 2019: CO is for corona, VI for virus and D for disease, and the WHO wanted a name that pointed at no place, animal or group of people.

Which European country put its whole population under COVID-19 lockdown on March 9, 2020?

Italy had sealed off Lombardy and other northern provinces only the day before, then stretched the same travel ban over the entire country overnight.

Which actor announced from Australia that he had COVID-19 hours after the pandemic was declared?

Tom Hanks was in Australia to make the film Elvis when he and his wife, Rita Wilson, fell ill; the NBA suspended its season that same evening.

Which annual event was cancelled in March 2020 for the first time in its 64-year history?

Eurovision Song Contest: organisers called it off on March 18 after 64 unbroken years, and Rotterdam, left without its show, was handed the 2021 contest instead.

Which city was due to host the 2020 Summer Olympics before they were postponed to 2021?

Tokyo kept the name Tokyo 2020 even though its Games were held in July and August 2021, and almost all of the events took place without spectators.

Which country became NATO's 30th member on March 27, 2020?

North Macedonia had been kept waiting for years by Greece's objection to the name Macedonia; a 2018 deal between the two added 'North' and cleared the way.

In April 2020, a four-year-old tiger named Nadia tested positive for COVID-19 at which zoo?

Bronx Zoo vets tested Nadia after she developed a dry cough; she had caught the virus from a keeper who showed no symptoms, and several other big cats fell ill too.

What unprecedented thing happened to the price of US crude oil on April 20, 2020?

It fell below zero: with storage tanks nearly full, holders of expiring oil contracts paid buyers to take the barrels off their hands.

The May 2020 Crew Dragon flight was the first crewed launch from US soil since the retirement of what?

The Space Shuttle retired in 2011; in the nine years between, NASA astronauts could reach the station only aboard Russian Soyuz capsules.

Whose murder by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, sparked worldwide protests?

George Floyd died after officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck during an arrest; a bystander's video spread worldwide, and Chauvin was convicted of murder in April 2021.

On June 30, 2020, China imposed a sweeping national security law on which territory?

Hong Kong's law followed a year of mass pro-democracy protests; it made secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces crimes carrying up to life in prison.

In July 2020, hackers hijacked high-profile Twitter accounts to promote a scam involving what?

Bitcoin: hijacked accounts such as Barack Obama's and Elon Musk's promised to double any payment sent to one address, and a 17-year-old from Florida was charged over the attack.

NASA's Mars 2020 mission, launched on July 30, carried which rover?

Perseverance was sent to look for signs of ancient microscopic life in Jezero Crater, and it carried the small Ingenuity helicopter along for the ride.

Which 18-year-old swept the four biggest Grammy categories at the January 2020 ceremony?

Billie Eilish won Album, Record and Song of the Year and Best New Artist with songs her brother Finneas produced in his small bedroom studio, a sweep managed once before, in 1981.

Unsafely stored ammonium nitrate caused a huge explosion in which port city on August 4, 2020?

Beirut's port had held the 2,750 tonnes for six years, ever since it was taken off a cargo ship; the blast left as many as 300,000 people temporarily homeless.

Mass protests followed the August 2020 re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in which country?

Belarus erupted after officials gave Lukashenko 80% of the vote amid claims of fraud; within days his challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had left for Lithuania.

Which country announced in August 2020 that it had approved a COVID-19 vaccine before large trials were complete?

Russia named the shot Sputnik V in honour of the first satellite, and Vladimir Putin said one of his own daughters had already been given it.

In August 2020, Israel agreed to normalise relations with which Gulf state?

UAE: in return Israel shelved its plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco signed similar deals within months.

Bayern Munich beat which club 1–0 in the 2020 Champions League final in Lisbon?

Paris Saint-Germain were beaten by a 59th-minute header from Kingsley Coman, a Paris-born winger who had started his career in their own academy.

Who resigned in 2020 as Japan's longest-serving prime minister because of a chronic illness?

Shinzo Abe stepped down over ulcerative colitis, the same bowel disease that had cut short his first term in 2007; his chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, took over.

Jacinda Ardern won a landslide second term in October 2020 as prime minister of which country?

New Zealand's voting system had pushed every government since 1996 into coalitions or support deals, but Labour's 50% gave Ardern enough seats to govern alone.

In October 2020, NASA's OSIRIS-REx briefly touched down on which asteroid to collect a sample?

Bennu was touched for only a few seconds by the craft's sampling arm; the dust and pebbles it grabbed parachuted into the Utah desert in September 2023.

Maia Sandu, a former World Bank economist, became the first woman elected president of which country in 2020?

Moldova's voters turned out the incumbent, Igor Dodon, who was openly backed by Russia, giving the pro-EU Sandu almost 58% of the run-off vote.

Kamala Harris, elected US vice president in November 2020, was a senator from which state?

California's junior senator had abandoned her own run for president in December 2019, before a single primary; eight months later Joe Biden chose her as his running mate.

Which partnership announced the first successful phase III COVID-19 vaccine trial results in November 2020?

Pfizer and BioNTech reported more than 90% efficacy; the small German partner had begun designing the shot in January, days after the virus's genetic code was published.

Which country was the first to approve a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine, on December 2, 2020?

United Kingdom regulators moved first, and six days later Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother, was given the opening dose of the mass rollout at a hospital in Coventry.

Which famous radio telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020?

Arecibo's 900-ton instrument platform crashed into the dish in Puerto Rico weeks after officials decided to dismantle it, ending 57 years of work by a telescope seen in the Bond film GoldenEye.

When COVID-19 finally reached Antarctica in December 2020, the first cases were at a research base run by which country?

Chile's army reported 36 infections at its Bernardo O'Higgins station on the Antarctic Peninsula, ending almost a year in which the continent had stayed free of the virus.

Charpentier and Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing what?

CRISPR gene editing grew out of Emmanuelle Charpentier's study of a harmful bacterium, which uses the same molecular scissors to cut up the DNA of invading viruses.

Which organisation won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize?

World Food Programme: the Nobel committee credited the UN agency with fighting hunger in conflict zones and working to stop starvation being used as a weapon of war.

Louise Glück, the American who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, is known for which kind of writing?

Poetry: the Swedish Academy honoured her "unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal"; she had been US poet laureate in 2003.

Roger Penrose shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on which objects?

Black holes were doubted even by Einstein, whose own theory predicts them; Penrose proved in 1965 that they must form, and his co-winners found one at the heart of our galaxy.

Which film became the first non-English-language winner of the Best Picture Oscar in February 2020?

Parasite upset the favourite, the war epic 1917, and won four Oscars in all, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Bong Joon Ho.

Which team ended a 50-year championship drought by winning Super Bowl LIV in February 2020?

Kansas City Chiefs trailed by 10 points in the fourth quarter before Patrick Mahomes led them to a 31–20 win over the 49ers and their first title since 1970.

Where did the NBA complete the 2019–20 season inside a 'bubble'?

Walt Disney World's sports complex near Orlando sealed in 22 teams from July to October; the Lakers left with the title and LeBron James with the Finals MVP award.

The Dodgers ended a 32-year title drought by beating which team in the 2020 World Series?

Rays: Tampa Bay lost in six games, every one of them played at a neutral ballpark in Texas because of the pandemic, after a regular season cut to 60 games.

Which club won the 2019–20 Premier League to end a 30-year wait for the English league title?

Liverpool sealed it with seven games to spare, the earliest any champion had done so, yet not until late June, because the pandemic had frozen the season for three months.

Which Netflix documentary about Joe Exotic drew 34 million viewers in its first ten days?

Tiger King made such a celebrity of Joe Exotic's rival, the sanctuary owner Carole Baskin, that she was cast in Dancing with the Stars that autumn.

Which Supreme Court justice died on September 18, 2020, at age 87?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, only the second woman to sit on the court, died 46 days before the presidential election, and Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to her seat with eight days to go.

Which Black Panther star died of colon cancer on August 28, 2020, having kept his illness private?

Chadwick Boseman was diagnosed in 2016 and kept working through four years of treatment, Black Panther included, without ever speaking publicly about being ill.

Which Nintendo Switch game, released on March 20, 2020, became a lockdown phenomenon?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold 11.77 million copies in its first 12 days, arriving just as much of the world was being told to stay at home.

Which artist's 'Blinding Lights' was the best-selling global single of 2020?

It became the first song ever to spend a full year in the Billboard top ten, yet was famously shut out of the Grammy nominations.

Which games console was released worldwide in November 2020?

PlayStation 5 reached the US and Japan on November 12 and Europe a week later, but a global chip shortage kept it scarce in shops long after launch.

On February 5, 2020, the US Senate acquitted Donald Trump at the end of what?

His first impeachment trial ended with just one Republican senator, Mitt Romney, voting to convict; a second trial a year later also ended in acquittal.

Which Netflix drama about a troubled prodigy became a surprise global hit in October 2020?

The Queen's Gambit, about an orphaned chess genius, drew 62 million households in four weeks, and Netflix reported that inquiries for chess sets on eBay had jumped 250%.

Sultan Qaboos, the Arab world's longest-serving ruler, died in January 2020 after almost 50 years leading which country?

Oman's ruler had taken power by deposing his own father in 1970, then opened up the isolated country and abolished slavery; a cousin, Haitham bin Tariq, succeeded him.

What landed on Mike Pence's head during the 2020 vice-presidential debate, inspiring memes and a Halloween costume?

A fly settled there, and Joe Biden's campaign went on to buy the domain flywillvote.com and tweet a picture of Biden holding a swatter.

Which country music star's $1 million donation helped fund early research on Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in 2020?

Dolly Parton gave the money to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and it paid for critical early stages of the vaccine's development.

A mysterious metal monolith was spotted in November 2020 by a helicopter crew counting bighorn sheep in which US state?

Utah lost its pillar nine days later, when four Moab residents covertly removed it, but over two hundred copycat columns then appeared around the globe.

The record 2020 Atlantic hurricane season exhausted its list of storm names, so later storms were named after what?

Greek letters were called on for only the second time, after 2005, as a record 30 named storms formed; the backup alphabet was then dropped for good.

Which Chinese zodiac creature, first in the twelve-year cycle, names the lunar year that began in January 2020?

Rat years open the cycle because, in the best-known telling, the rat crossed the river on the ox's back and leapt off to reach the Jade Emperor first.

Which two planets appeared closer together on 21 December 2020 than at any time since 1623, in a 'great conjunction'?

Jupiter and Saturn sat just six arcminutes apart at their closest, and sky-watchers who missed it must wait until November 2040 for the pair's next meeting.

Captain Tom Moore raised over £30 million for NHS charities in April 2020 by doing what?

Walking laps of his garden behind a frame, ten a day, he hoped to raise £1,000 by his 100th birthday; instead more than 1.5 million people donated.

Which country's parliament voted unanimously in November 2020 to become the first to make period products free for all?

Scotland put a legal duty on its local councils to supply free tampons and pads to anyone who needs them, capping a campaign by Labour MSP Monica Lennon.

Which company became the first in the US to reach a $2 trillion stock market value, in August 2020?

Apple had become the first trillion-dollar US company only two years earlier, in August 2018, so its second trillion arrived far faster than its first.

The El Dorado Fire, which burned for 71 days in 2020, was started by a smoke device at what kind of event?

A gender reveal party set it off when a couple's smoke bomb ignited the park; a firefighter died, and the hosts were charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Which Deep South state did Joe Biden win by under 12,000 votes in 2020, a Democratic first there since 1992?

Georgia was decided by 11,779 votes out of about five million, close enough that the ballots were recounted by hand before the result was confirmed.

Prince Harry and Meghan, who announced in January 2020 they were stepping back as senior royals, held which dukedom?

Sussex was revived for Harry on his wedding day in 2018, having lapsed in 1843; the pair's 2020 exit was soon nicknamed Megxit.

Joaquin Phoenix won the 2020 Best Actor Oscar for which film, the first R-rated release to gross $1 billion?

Joker took more than $1 billion worldwide, and Phoenix became the second actor, after Heath Ledger, to earn an Oscar for playing the same comic-book villain.

Which singer co-headlined the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in Florida with Jennifer Lopez in February 2020?

Shakira shared the stage with guests Bad Bunny and J Balvin, and the pairing was reportedly chosen to reflect the Latin culture of Miami, the host.

Which Grand Slam tennis tournament was cancelled in 2020, something that had not happened since the Second World War?

Wimbledon had insured itself against infectious disease, and its organisers reportedly claimed more than £100 million for the lost fortnight.

Which James Bond film, pulled from its April 2020 slot in early March, finally reached cinemas in autumn 2021?

No Time to Die moved first to November 2020 and eventually premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 28 September 2021.

Which cruise ship was quarantined at the Japanese port of Yokohama in February 2020 with over 700 people infected?

Diamond Princess was held for nearly a month with her passengers aboard, and at least 712 of the 3,711 people on the ship tested positive.

Which Nordic country kept shops, restaurants and junior schools open in spring 2020 instead of ordering a lockdown?

Sweden limited itself to distancing advice and bans on large gatherings, a course defended by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who doubted the science behind lockdowns.

Which app did India ban in 2020, the same year Donald Trump ordered its owner ByteDance to sell up?

TikTok had been drawing 43% of its new users from India before the ban, which followed a border clash between Indian and Chinese troops.

Which sixth-century Istanbul landmark, a museum since 1935, was turned back into a mosque in July 2020?

Hagia Sophia was completed in 537 as a Christian basilica under the emperor Justinian, and spent 85 years as a museum before a Turkish court annulled that status.

Which prime minister was moved to intensive care with COVID-19 in April 2020?

Boris Johnson later said he had been given emergency oxygen in intensive care and that doctors had made preparations in case he died.

Dominic Cummings said he drove to which County Durham town during the spring 2020 lockdown to test his eyesight?

Barnard Castle lay about 30 miles from where the prime minister's adviser was isolating, and commentators soon found the town's name was old slang for a pathetic excuse.

Which England forward's campaign made the government extend free school meals through the summer holidays of 2020?

Marcus Rashford also helped the charity FareShare raise over £20 million to feed children, and was made an MBE that October.

Protesters pulled down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in June 2020 and pushed it into which city's harbour?

Bristol City Council retrieved the bronze four days later and went on to exhibit it in the M Shed museum, still covered in the protesters' graffiti.

Which former Director of Public Prosecutions was elected leader of Labour in April 2020, succeeding Jeremy Corbyn?

Keir Starmer took 56.2 per cent of the vote in the first round, and four years later led Labour back into government as prime minister.

Which Chancellor of the Exchequer launched Eat Out to Help Out, the half-price restaurant meals scheme of August 2020?

Rishi Sunak offered diners half off their meal, up to £10 a head, from Monday to Wednesday at participating cafes, pubs and restaurants.

On which evening each week did people applaud NHS and care staff during spring 2020's Clap for Our Carers campaign?

Thursday at 8pm was the slot for ten straight weeks, in a campaign promoted by Annemarie Plas, a Dutch woman living in London who had seen the idea in Europe.

Which comedian and musician won Strictly Come Dancing in December 2020 with professional partner Oti Mabuse?

Bill Bailey beat HRVY, Jamie Laing and Maisie Smith in the final, handing Oti Mabuse her second Strictly title in a row.

The first NHS Nightingale Hospital, built for COVID-19 patients, opened in April 2020 inside which London venue?

ExCeL, a convention centre in the east of the capital, was converted at speed, yet the hospital treated only 54 patients during the first wave.

Which 2020 documentary series, shown on ESPN from April, followed Michael Jordan and the 1997–98 Chicago Bulls?

The Last Dance was due in June, but ESPN moved the premiere up to 19 April once the pandemic had halted live sport.

Which sitcom became the first comedy to sweep all seven comedy categories at the Primetime Emmys, in September 2020?

Schitt's Creek also made Eugene and Dan Levy the first father and son to win Emmys in the same year, with Dan taking four awards himself.

Which tech billionaire and the musician Grimes had a son in May 2020 whose unusual name, X Æ A-12, made headlines?

Elon Musk and Grimes found the original broke state naming regulations, so the birth certificate swaps the number for the Roman numerals Xii.

Which rapper announced a 2020 run for US president under the banner of the newly formed Birthday Party?

Kanye West made the ballot in only 12 states and conceded the morning after Election Day, having received fewer than 70,000 votes.

Which country trio dropped the word 'Dixie' from their name in June 2020 and released the album Gaslighter?

The Chicks made the change after seeing the word attached to the Confederate battle flag online, and Gaslighter was their first album in 14 years.

Which hit game was pulled from the iPhone App Store in August 2020 after Epic Games bypassed the payment system?

Fortnite's maker had long challenged the 30% cut taken on every purchase, and went straight to court when the game was blocked.

Which long-awaited game featuring Keanu Reeves launched so buggy in December 2020 that Sony pulled it from sale?

Cyberpunk 2077 stayed off Sony's online store until June 2021, while developer CD Projekt apologised and told unhappy buyers they could ask for refunds.

Which whipped drink, named after a Korean sugar candy, became a social media craze during the lockdowns of 2020?

Dalgona coffee was named by South Korean actor Jung Il-woo, who tried it on a TV show in Macau; most versions contain none of the candy.

Which animated sequel did Universal release for home rental in April 2020 on the same day as its cinema debut?

Trolls World Tour made an estimated $150 million from rentals, and the move so angered AMC Theatres that the chain announced a ban on Universal films, which it later dropped.

In The Mandalorian's second season in 2020, the character fans had nicknamed Baby Yoda was finally given which name?

Grogu is named in the episode Chapter 13: The Jedi, which also explains that he was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant during the Clone Wars.

China's Chang'e 5 probe returned to Earth in December 2020 with the first samples collected since 1976 from where?

The Moon gave up about 1.7 kg of rock and soil, the first lunar samples brought home since the Soviet probe Luna 24.

In September 2020, astronomers reported phosphine, a possible sign of life, in the atmosphere of which planet?

Venus kept its secrets, though: within weeks a review of the telescope data found calibration errors that cast doubt on the detection.

Which comet, the brightest in northern skies since Hale–Bopp, was visible to the naked eye throughout July 2020?

NEOWISE takes its name from the orbiting infrared telescope mission that discovered it on 27 March 2020, only months before it brightened.

Which star in Orion faded so sharply in early 2020 that reports asked whether it might be about to explode?

Betelgeuse dropped out of the twenty brightest stars, but Hubble observations later pointed to a cloud of dust formed from material the star itself had thrown off.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a 44-day war in autumn 2020 for control of which disputed region?

Nagorno-Karabakh saw the fighting end in an Azerbaijani victory after the capture of Shusha, its second-largest city, and the ceasefire set off angry protests in Armenia.

Which opposition leader was taken ill on a flight from Tomsk in 2020 and treated in Berlin for Novichok poisoning?

Alexei Navalny was first treated in Omsk, where the plane made an emergency landing and doctors initially declared him too sick to be moved.

Qasem Soleimani, killed by a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January 2020, was a top general of which country?

Iran struck back five days later, firing ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq where American personnel were stationed.

Which US state retired the last state flag to include the Confederate battle emblem in June 2020?

Mississippi voters approved the replacement that November with 73% support: a magnolia design that, as the law required, carries the motto In God We Trust.

Tom Brady left the New England Patriots after 20 seasons in March 2020 to sign with which NFL team?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers also landed Rob Gronkowski, who came out of retirement a month later, and Brady won the Super Bowl in his first season there.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine honoured Harvey Alter and two colleagues for the discovery of which virus?

Hepatitis C was identified in 1988, after Alter's team had shown in the mid-1970s that most hepatitis caught from blood transfusions came from neither the A nor the B virus.

Nepal and China jointly announced a new official height of 8,848.86 metres in December 2020 for which mountain?

Everest had been the subject of an old argument: China measured the rock summit at 8,844 metres while Nepal counted the snow on top, so the two ran a joint survey.